£150 to spend.... but what on?

RANZID

RANZID

RANZID

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ok, so ive managed to save up about £150 ( im a trainee teacher and so poorer than erm.. a poor person)

so anyway , im looking to boost the pc as its starting to show its age a little, so first things first, my specs:

Asus p5n32e-sli
q6600 (the 95w one)
Zalman cps95? .. i dunno its number, but its the one before they made the fan bigger if that makes sense?
4x1gb samsung 667 ddr2 ( sucks big time)
8800gts 320 (asus i think)
random 550w psu
2x500g samsungs

so, its a tough one for me as i know clocking the 6600 should be fairly nice but im on 2.5 odd at the mo and idle is 42 load is 52 ish so id rather get some more cooling before i push it any further.

The idea ive had so far is:

new heat sink+fan for cpu so it can hit 2.7/2.8 ish
ocz blade 4gb kit that ocuk are selling, looks tight on timeing
and if possible an SSD hdd to bump the boot times

it aint pretty but at the mo it seems ok, but im wondering if any other ideas could boost more , like splash it all on a new cpu or gfx card?

i havnt posted in ages but i know this is the place where experts live so please.. use your experty powers and gimme some idea's.

thanks in advance for any help.
 
Look like you have a beast CPU, if I were you save a bit more and buy a new board, new ram and new PSU. Al of that I think about £200 ish.
 
I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination...

But you could buy a better heatsink and clock the q6600! I have't looked at your board, but you might be able to buy a decent motherboard and a set of quicker ram (4gb) too?

Edit-

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £86.99
OCZ Platinum Series 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (OCZ2P10664GK) £49.44
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £19.54

Sub Total : £135.62
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £21.77
Total : £166.89

Or maybe slightly cheaper ram?
 
Last edited:
so new mobo/ram/hs ?

what kinda mobo? is nforce still worth it or is intel the way to go?

as for ram is the ocz blade a good lot?
 
i've heard good things about this RAM, infact im buying it in a couple weeks. I know nothing about motherboards, however for a heatsink try this or this, perhaps a new mobo will be needed but we'll wait for some motherboard guru to come along and advise on that one. Maybe a new power supply too, however i doubt you're going to be able to afford all 4 things on that budget. You fancy poking your head inside your PC and actually telling us what PSU it is or is it that random you can't even tell?
 
well its sort of a doo everything pc , vid encodeing , gameing and normal office work

so u think i wouldnt have any bottlenecks if i just went for a new gfx card?
 
if you still use your pc for gaming

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49
(£69.99) £80.49
(£69.99)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £75.99
(£66.08) £75.99
(£66.08)
Sub Total : £136.07
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £21.91
Total : £167.98

maybe some faster RAM if you can spare the extra cash
 
RANZID said:
so u think i wouldnt have any bottlenecks if i just went for a new gfx card?
Click to expand...

Nope.

Its a strong CPU, RAM isn't the fastest but will do its job. I guess the question to ask is during which programs do you feel it seems aged?
 
righty , managed to get inside , cant find a brand just 550w but surely psu cant make that much difference to performance can it?
 
well if you're looking at a new GPU i'd maybe try one of them new 4770, they're about 80 quid so leaves you some change for some other things, plus i hear they can reach pretty much 4850 performance
 
jak731 said:
if you still use your pc for gaming

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49
(£69.99) £80.49
(£69.99)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £75.99
(£66.08) £75.99
(£66.08)
Sub Total : £136.07
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £21.91
Total : £167.98

maybe some faster RAM if you can spare the extra cash
Click to expand...


is my mobo realy that bad? i thought it was just like the striker but withought the fancy bits? also .. ati? .. realy?... i felt bad for moving to intel with this system.. should i realy go all the way to the dark side?
 
One question why are people recommending a motherboard upgrade?

If you want to stay Nvidia then the gtx 260 is a good choice.
 
p43 should allow for a much easier overclock on your CPU provided your RAM doesnt limit you too much.

ATi kinda rule in the GPU market you should be looking at, sub £100 so theres little choice in that. Nvidia has the very high end (GTX285 & GTX295) under their control
 
personally, seeing as it's games that you want an improvement in buy a new GPU, i'm running a Q6600 at stock and i've had no troubles in games.

What i'm trying to say is you may not need to overclock much at all really
 
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